Fire fees increase proposed

Friday

Feb 21, 2014 at 12:01 AM

SOMERSET — At a recent meeting of town department heads, Fire Chief Scott Jepson said Town Administrator Dennis Luttrell asked for departments to try to come up with ways to bring more revenue into the town as Somerset is dealing with a difficult financial time.

George Austin

SOMERSET — At a recent meeting of town department heads, Fire Chief Scott Jepson said Town Administrator Dennis Luttrell asked for departments to try to come up with ways to bring more revenue into the town as Somerset is dealing with a difficult financial time.

"This is probably going to put us in the middle of most of the area departments if we increase the rate," Chief Jepson said.

Chief Jepson said that the change in the fee would not increase the charge for 99.9 percent of the people who need ambulance runs. He said the increase would be paid by their insurance companies. He said deductibles and co-pays for insurance don't usually change based on the ambulance rate.

Chief Jepson said the increase would not affect those people on Medicare at all, which represents about 40 percent of the ambulance runs and only would be charged to the insurance companies of almost all of the other 60 percent of people. He said the town also has a mechanism to reduce the ambulance fee for people who have hardships, such as those who have insurance that does not cover ambulance runs.

"It is what it is and that's important," Chief Jepson said. "We're not trying to burden the residents anymore either. I'm very conscious of that when I make these decisions and recommendations."

Chief Jepson said that increasing the ambulance fee could pay for one additional salary at the Fire Department. The money generated from the fees currently pays for 10 salaries of firefighters. That money had been paying for eight salaries until it was increased last year.

"I don't know how many more we can support," Chief Jepson said of the amount of firefighter salaries funded by the ambulance fees. "But we are busier than ever. We are running a second ambulance 75 percent of the time when manpower allows and our numbers are up higher than ever."

In Fiscal Year 2013, the Fire Department took in $993,225 from ambulance fees. The expenses for the program were just under $672,000 and that included eight salaries. Because of a shortage in some medications, Chief Jepson said there has been an increase in that cost, as well as other supplies needed for the ambulance. He anticipates the Fire Department bringing in $1.1 million from ambulance fees this year.

"My main message to the board is if I can keep my manpower, then we're able to make money," Chief Jepson said. "It's that simple."

A full staff for the Fire Department was 31 firefighters, but Chief Jepson said the selectmen did not replace one firefighter position after Deputy Chief David Messier retired last year. He said being down one firefighter has cost the Fire Department $34,000 in six months because of overtime costs and lost revenue from not being able to do as many mutual aid ambulance runs.

He said one shift can only staff one ambulance, instead of two, because it has one less firefighter on it. Chief Jepson said if that firefighter position was filled, close to the person's salary could be made up. He also said that money was not the only issue, but also having bodies to do work that is very labor intensive.

"You have to run this like a business to a degree, also," Chief Jepson said.

For his Fiscal Year 2015 budget proposal, Chief Jepson said he has made so many cuts, that he is down to postage and stamps as the only area left to reduce.

Out of that discussion, Chief Jepson has proposed to increase a lot of the permit fees that his department charges, as well as the ambulance fee.

Before making his proposal to the selectmen last week, Chief Jepson compared the permit fees that Somerset charges to Westport, Swansea, Dighton, Freetown, Fall River, Dartmouth, Seekonk and Taunton.